At the Chrism Mass yesterday at St. Matt's, Bishop Rhoades emphasized the "poor." In his remarks to the priests of the diocese, he seemed to be suggesting that a few of them were not living the "simple life" that he proclaimed moments earlier. I believe that Liberal Catholics will make more headway with the poor as an issue, think "social justice," than with a "married clergy" or "women priests." I'd be very surprised if the many priests and other religious at that impressive service voted less than 70% for Obama in '12. If that's the case, they are more in line with non-practicing Catholics than with the faithful who attend Mass every Sunday.

"The Rev. Edward Ruetz," [yes, the Tribune put the "the" in front of his name at letter's end] graces today's SBT VOP section with a lengthy missive in which he attacks the Church which he believes to be retreating "to the spirit and ways of the long dead age of the 1500s and the Council of Trent!" Father Ed does not like all those male cardinals at the papal conclave, the absence of women prelates and sums things up concisely: ""...the Catholic Church continues to be a completely male, patriarchal, misogynist and sexist in its hierarchical structure." Father Ed, Mister Ed, whatever.

Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees is meeting this week in Rome, and of course the university’s senior leadership is there too. The first bit of Notre Dame news from Rome yesterday was the announcement of a 400 million dollar campus building project. The heart of the new project is luxury accommodations for football fans, including indoor seating for those willing to pay a thousand dollars to stay warm on chill November afternoons. The other bit of news was Pope Francis’ brief remarks to the Notre Dame party, which visited him at the Vatican. This pope, already celebrated for his simplicity and poverty of life, praised the university’s historic role in fostering the Catholic faith in America. But then he issued an unvarnished moral challenge to the assembled leaders of this nation’s most prominent Catholic institution. Pope Francis told the Notre Dame group that the “commitment to ‘missionary discipleship’ ought to be reflected in a special way in Catholic universities.” An “essential” (the pope’s word) part of this commitment “is the uncompromising witness of Catholic universities to the Church’s moral teaching.” ”It is my hope,” the Holy Father added, “that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to dilute that indispensable witness.”

One such “quarter” is surely the Obama administration, which has required the university to trigger free distribution of contraceptives and abortifacients to all Notre Dame women (employees, spouses, dependents) of reproductive age. Notre Dame continues to seek judicial relief from this requirement, but has chosen to comply with it in the meantime. The mandated “preventive services” (as the University’s own HR department describes them) are being delivered to those who ask for them by a Saint Louis-based pharmaceutical giant called “Express Scripts.” This mega-firm’s relationship to Notre Dame and/or to its third-party provider (Meritain) is not yet apparent. Nor is the funding source behind these mandated free “services” apparent from the federal regulations, which assert that the objecting religious employer is not to be that source without making clear who is.

Notre Dame could contribute to its “unambiguous” witness against these immoralities by answering these questions, to the very best of its ability.

Gerard V. Bradley is professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.